How to Teach Reading to English Learners

50 reading activities that you can use in your classroom reading is an essential skill that every person should learn but when it comes to teaching a lot of Educators feel like this is something students should do on their own that there's not really a lot they can do apart from handing out comprehension sheets but actually reading should not be done in isolation reading should be used and integrated with other skills such as comprehension speaking and creative use of the language to form a more complete individual when you use other activities with reading you will help your students evolve into stronger individuals with a wider set of skills so basically there are two types of reading reading for fluency and reading for comprehension when students are reading for fluency they should do it out loud so the teacher can fix any pronunciation errors that they make when reading for comprehension they should do it a l alone or in a small group so that they can actually understand the content that they're going through Reading happens in three phases pre-reading where the teacher prepares the students for the story while reading reading with others and checking for understanding during the lesson and postreading where they reflect on what they have read and to see if they understood it all before you start make sure to pick the right Story the length should be suitable for your students and the target language should be relevant and interesting make sure that you can also incorporate other activities or materials into the lesson to make it more interesting most stories have a picture or photo above the text ask your students what they think of it ask them questions about the photo elicit vocabulary what can students expect in the text it is useful to pre-teach some keywords that they will find throughout the story author and title what can students predict will happen in the story if they look at the author and the title of the story what can they imagine going forward it'll be fun to go through the class and just ask him what do you think is going to happen what do you expect what do you think this author will try and tell us in this story this one is broken down into three parts parts I like to call the Tarantino the preview and the spoiler with the Tarantino you read the last part of the the text and then you ask students to predict what will happen throughout the beginning and the middle of it with a preview you skim the first paragraph and get a feel for what will happen for the rest of the book and the spoiler scan the text for any words or phrases that might pop up and then afterwards ask the students what they can expect will happen in this story the next phase while reading reading aloud now this this isn't just students reading aloud basically you break the class up into teams one TEAM stands up and they have to read if it's lower level students they can read words and if it's more intermediate to Advanced students they can read sentences as soon as a student makes a mistake they that group has to sit down and the other group stands up the students get super competitive over this because they try and stand up as long as possible and they really focus on getting it right reading race pair the students up and let them line up against the wall on the other side of the class you're going to paste um strips of text from the story or if it's lower level students just words then you give them a list of questions the students have to alternate by running back and forth asking a question running forward looking it up and then running back and giving their answer to their partner the the First theme done wins whisper race put the students into groups and let them line up at the back a student reads a text and then Whispers the sentence to their friend in front and they send it all the way to the front where the student has to write it on the board I feel it's better when you let the students organize themselves who will be the writer who will be the first one to read and who sits in between this is a really fun game and by giving them the power to choose who sits where gives them a sense of authority and ownership of the activity role play if the class is too large break it into groups then write down all the characters and the narrator on the board and tell the students that each student will be one of those characters or the narrator tell them that they have to make sure that everybody understands what happens in the story because you will ask them questions afterwards they will make sure that the whole group understands what happens and it will also improve their comprehension of the story blank out words erase certain words in the text and students have to guess what the word is cut up the text into different pieces you can also use different stories so that they are multiple stories running around cut it up tell the students to read it and then they have to go around the class and reassemble their story this is a fun way for the students to read the story and also to interact with their classmates this is similar to number 10 where you cut out paragraphs or sentences and you tell students to rearrange it to form the complete story add misspelled words I used to enjoy doing this as a teacher I would make a mistake on the board and I would wait for my students to correct me so what you do is you intentionally add misspelled words to the text and you ask students to Circle them as you read through it stop before the end so read your book or text and then and before you get to the ending tell the students to close their books or to turn over their papers now they have to predict what will happen for the ending you can also put them into groups where they brainstorm together and then tell the class what they think will happen this is great for books like holes where you know there are a lot of twists and turns post reading here's where most of the activities come in because usually at the end of the text we're going to check the students comprehension so there are many activities that we can do discussion about the text this is where your comprehension questions come in students can quiz each other ask the students to create 10 questions that they can ask their partner summarize the story ask students to retell the story by paraphrasing you can also summarize the main idea of each paragraph share a story or a situation from your own life with a student that is similar to the text students can also compare a movie or a book that they have done that is similar to the story that makes it more real to the students because they can connect it to their very own lives and things that they see in reality ask a students why they think you pre-taught them those keywords during the pre-reading phase what do they mean in the context of the story why are they important play Taboo with the key wordss students have to explain a word to their group without using it this is a great way for them to put the word into context rewrite the story for kids this is a really fun creative activity where you can make illustrations and actually simplify the message of the story pick an issue from the story that students can debate over this should be done in a structured manner otherwise chaos May ensue students can play different characters they can roleplay scenes they can even create their own dialogue for the characters another thing you can do is to interview characters from the book or the story so you have two students together and one is a character from the book and the other person interviews them have students write an alternate ending to the book they can also perhaps write a missing part to the book a eulogy for a character this is a bit dark but it helps students to actually gain extra insight into the characters they can write a eulogy about the character's life and what they did who they were students have to look up good or new words from the text and they have to make new sentences using those words fake definitions tell students that they have to write different definitions for some words so you can give them five words and you say okay write different definitions for these difficult words and then the other group has to try and figure out which ones are true and which ones are false find some irregular verbs and have students write out new sentences in the past form the present form or the future form find 10 adjectives in the text and ask your students to write down the antonyms or the synonyms they can also act them out and have friends guess what they're acting out timeline or collage this is more creative work you can have students make a timeline of the story or they can build a collage if you have enough time or you want to do something more creative use the same title and tell students to write a different story using the exact same title you can also use it with the characters they have to use the same characters but use it in a different story students pick a special moment in the story and they draw a picture on it they can also comment and tell you why this is the most important part of the story to them retell the story from a different point of view they can rewrite or retell the story from another character's point of view or from a third or first person perspective the most list students have to make a list of things that were funny or sad or surprising in the text title each paragraph this will help students think more about what each paragraph means and why writers use them in stories underline all the pronouns in the story I you we they and then ask students who or what they refer to students can write a letter to the protagonist or another character in the story and they can share their feelings or give advice draw a story map it's a graphic organizer for students to understand the elements in a story create a poster think of the book as a movie and students have to create a poster for it they have to add all the most important parts of it or some special elements that feature in the book or the story have students write and act out new dialogue between the characters never before seen situations that students can create and be more creative and add their own spin to the story mime words or opposites this is a fun game for students to do especially lowlevel midlevel or high level students because it gets them to actually act in class and play the game secret word a student has to pick a word from the text and their partner has to try and guess what the word is it's almost like 20 Questions act out scenes from the story they can also act out a lost scene from the story make a dance or a song up about the book or the story pair interview with a partner it's almost like a man on the street interview where students interview their partner about the book what did did they think how did they feel about it what did they think about the characters sing the text to a well-known song or nursery rhyme double dangers students have to put two words together that start with the same letter angry adults beautiful Beatles something that has to do with the text or the story who said that give students a quote from the book or the story and they have to guess who said it retell this story students sit in a circle and they have to start telling the story using their own words you can go part by part where they decide where they stop or you as the teacher can tell them right stop next next next and uh students really like this at first they might be nervous and shy but as they get into it and as the creative Juices Flow they can really enjoy this one

Channel: Etacude English Teachers

Views: 4,434

Keywords: ESL, Reading Activities, Classroom, Teaching, English Language, Reading Comprehension Exercises, Interactive Reading Tasks, ESL Reading, English Reading, Reading Games, Fluency Building Activities, Differentiated Reading Tasks, Reading Tasks, Reading Skills, ESL Reading Resources, Reading Practice, Reading Techniques, Shared Reading, Guided Reading, Silent Reading, Storytelling, Teaching Strategies, Literacy, Comprehension, classroom games

Id: sfyromrLJ0Q

Length: 12min 55sec (775 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 27 2024